It’s Hard Out Here for a Journalist

How are you enjoying living in the golden age of journalism? It’s pretty sweet, right?

Wait … you didn’t know you were living in the golden age of journalism? Well, dummy, you are. The Nation says so. And so does Wired. Salon too. And, while they all have slightly different arguments, the crux of each argument is the same: There’s great work being done by talented people, and the reader has more of this work at her fingertips than ever before.

That reasoning is hard to debate. There is incredible work being done, and the ability to access that work is unprecedented. And, of course, there’s that whole thing about it pretty much being entirely free for the reader. That’s nice too. (Although, I do wish you were paying me to read this.)

But now that you know you’re living in the golden age of journalism and you’re about to tell all your friends about it, just don’t go spouting off about the whole thing to any — you know — journalists. They’re probably not trying to hear all that. And that’s because, for the most part, journalism doesn’t pay shit, even if you’re great at it.

If you had any doubts about that, then yesterday’s Pulitzer Prize announcements should’ve put those to rest. When the winners were announced, it was revealed that two of the recipients, Rob Kuznia and Natalie Caula Hauff, weren’t actually journalists anymore. Both left journalism to take jobs in PR, with Kuznia admitting he had done so because he couldn’t pay his rent.

Turns out, this age of journalism doesn’t pay the bills for those who are making it golden.